


Destruction

by thewestmeadow



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drabble, Drunkenness, F/M, Mutual Pining, Nausea, One Night Stands, One Shot, Self-Destruction, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 13:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewestmeadow/pseuds/thewestmeadow
Summary: After a failed one night stand with a stranger, you're too drunk to get home. You call the only person you can trust at a time like this: Bill Tench. While he gladly comes to your aid, both of you remain painfully aware of the wife who waits at home for him.
Relationships: Bill Tench/Nancy Tench, Bill Tench/Reader
Kudos: 6





	Destruction

You found yourself sitting in the man’s shower trying to make the room stop spinning. He was passed out naked in his bed. He had given you a ride to his house from the bar, and now you had no way home. Your car was back at the bar. Or parked somewhere on your street. You couldn’t remember. You sat in his shower for a long time, trying desperately not to throw up. Eventually, and very carefully, you made your way out, pulling on half of your clothes as you went searching for a phone.

Lately, this had become a trend. It was dangerous for you to be alone these days. When you weren’t drinking at home, you were at various bars on the outskirts of D.C. picking up men who knew and some you didn’t know. The danger was slightly assuaged by the fact that you were a trained FBI agent who could defend yourself if necessary. The last few months with Bill and Holden on the road had begun to wear on you. The emotional toll was high. This was the only thing that made it easier to bear, if only temporarily. 

You called the first person you thought of, the person you had been trying to get out of your mind all night.

“This is Bill Tench.”

“Hey, Bill...”

“Hey, Y/N. What’s going on?” You could hear the slight surprise in his voice at hearing from you this late.

“I fucked up. Can you come get me?”

“Where are you?” Now a note of urgency.

“I’m okay, I’m just really drunk and I can’t get home. I’ll give you the address. I’m so sorry... what time is it?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right there. Hang tight, okay?”

“Thank you. God I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” he laughed. “I’m on my way now.”

You hung up and peered back into bedroom where your date was still passed out, oblivious. You stumbled around the room plucking the rest of your discarded clothes from the floor, stuffing your underwear and one sock into your pocket.

You sat on the porch steps, illuminated by the porch light, smoking and waiting for Bill. When he rolled up, you were holding your head in your hands, cigarette smoldering forgotten between your fingers. At first you didn’t register that a car had stopped in the road, until you heard someone calling your name. You looked up to see Bill hanging out the window of his Plymouth Satellite; a very sexy car, you had always thought. 

“Oh thank god,” you said, gathering up your lighter and cigarettes and stumbling past his headlights to the passenger seat. 

As you sidled in, Bill got a good look at you. Hair disheveled, clothes askew, eyes bleary. 

“Fun night?”

“I wouldn’t call it fun.”

“Is there somebody in that house I need to kill?”

You shook your head, vision still spinning. “Just get me out of here.”

“You got it. Where do you want to go?”

“Can you take me home?”

“Of course.”

As he started towards your house, you could feel Bill side-eyeing you with a curious smirk.

“So. Who was he? Or she?”

“He,” you said. “I don’t know. I already forgot his name.”

Bill gave a low chuckle. He lit a cigarette as he pulled up to a red light. You rolled down the window, leaning your head back. 

“Went to a bar, got drunk and went home with him. It was all fine until the room started spinning.”

“Yeah, it’s never fun after that.”

“I’m trying not to puke in your car.”

“I trust you.”

You were mostly silent on the drive to your house, trying desperately to keep your head on. Bill kept glancing over to check on you. He smoked in silence, absorbed in his own thoughts. Finally you rolled to a stop outside your house.

“Need me to come in?” Bill asked.

“I’m a fucking wreck,” you murmured without hearing him, eyes clenched shut. The alcohol and the exhaustion were taking their toll. 

“Hey, come on. Let’s go in. You’re home now.”

Bill walked around to open your door, putting a hand on your shoulder as he guided you out of the car. He held your arm all the way to your porch, where you struggled but finally found the right key. You went straight inside to the sofa and collapsed without turning on any lights. Bill followed you, flipping on a lamp as he went. He sat down beside you as you leaned your head back with a sigh, trying to keep the nausea at bay.

As your hair fell back from your neck, Bill leaned forward, peering at something that caught his eye. He brushed the remaining strands of hair aside. 

“Is that a bruise?” he said, suddenly alarmed.

“It’s not a bruise,” you groaned, now completely embarrassed. 

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I remember how it got there.”

Bill grinned as the realization hit him. “That fucker gave you a hickey?”

“I told you I’m a fucking wreck.”

Out of nowhere, you started sobbing.

“You’re not a wreck. You were just trying to have a good time.” You could hear the smile in his voice, the gentleness.

“Well it wasn’t a good time. Not at all. I got completely shit-faced. I don’t know where I left my car. I don’t know why I keep doing this.”

“I totally get it.” He leaned his head on his hand, facing you. “We have hard jobs. Sometimes it drives us to destruction.”

“But you’re not destructive.”

“That’s not true. I just keep it hidden.”

He was right. You could remember more than a few occasions when Bill had ended up drinking more than was necessary. He was prone to overwork. But it was hard to detect that any of this indicated a deeper problem. 

“What about Holden?”

“Funny enough, this shit doesn’t seem to get to him. At least it hasn’t yet.”

“Then why does it get to me?”

“You’re more sensitive than Holden. You take things in, carry them inside you. I’m the same way.”

He examined you with concern, and his voice grew gentle again.

“You know I’m here for you if it ever gets to be too much.”

The tone of his deep voice woke something inside you. You blurted out your next words without thinking.

“Where does Nancy think you are right now?”

A tense pause.

“She knows where I am. I told her I was picking you up.”

“She knows I’m drunk and needed to be rescued from a failed one night stand?”

“As far as she knows, your car broke down. I didn’t get into specifics.”

“Don’t you think she’s suspicious?”

“Suspicious of what? You’re my partner. We help each other.”

“I don’t know, Bill. I don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Is this wrong?”

“Is what wrong?”

“The fact that you’re here. The fact that I called you.”

“Why would that be wrong?”

“I don’t know what I’m capable of. I could fuck everything up.”

A pained look flashed across his face, but he quickly buried it. 

“How?”

He was gazing at you with such sincerity, such concern that you had to tear your eyes away from him, to muster up every last remnant of self-control you had, not to fuck everything up then and there just as you had warned. 

“I’m fucked up,” you said. “I’m out of control. You don’t know what I’m really like. Look at me. I don’t even know where my fucking car is.”

Then Bill did something that surprised you. He rested his big hand on your head. The warmth, the weight of it made you feel like melting. Your tears flowed freely as he stroked your hair, saying nothing, just watching. 

“Listen. You’re very drunk, and nothing makes sense right now. Things will look clearer in the morning.”

But he didn’t look so sure. There was something troubled in his eyes.

“You should get back to Nancy,” you said, wiping your face with your sleeve.

“I want to be here with you.”

Finally, the truth was out. But only partially. This was as far as it ever went with Bill. Both of you skirting around something you could not name. He dug out his cigarettes and offered you one. You took it silently and he lit it for you with his silver lighter. 

You loved watching Bill light cigarettes. You loved leaning forward so that he could light yours. That was the closest the two of you ever got. Then you would draw back from each other and go on as usual. Partners. Coworkers. Friends. Someone to pick you up when you were drunk, sitting in someone else’s shower, trying not to black out. He was the only one you thought of in those times. Ever. 

“Failed one night stand, huh?”

You gave a long sigh. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“That bad, huh?”

As he flicked his lighter shut, he brushed back your hair with his knuckles to examine your neck. You sat very still, absorbing the sensation. He chuckled and shook his head.

“You are trouble.”

“I know.”

It would have been the perfect moment to lean in, to kiss you. To forget your cigarettes and get lost in each other. To let things go too far. But he let your hair fall back into place and the two of you sat smoking silently, unable to cross that line.

“You know why I called you and not Holden?” you said eventually.

“Of course.”

“Okay, why?”

“Because Holden doesn’t smoke.”

You blew out a stream of smoke, nodding. “Exactly.”

When he finished his cigarette, you knew he was going to leave. You were more sober now. You knew this night would come back to haunt you in the morning. 

“I better get back,” he said. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah. A lot better. Thanks for saving me.”

Bill smiled, breaking your heart. 

“Anytime.”

You walked him to the door, watched him walk out to his Plymouth. The guttural sound of the engine cut through the night. He rolled down his window and called out to you one last time.

“It wasn’t Holden, was it?”

You just cracked up laughing. Bill grinned. That was all the answer he needed.

“That’s a relief. Goodnight, Y/N.”

He waved as he drove off, and you were alone again. You went inside, changed out of your clothes, pulled your underwear out of your jacket pocket and felt ridiculous. You thought of every way in which you wanted to seduce him, and every reason that you couldn’t. 

As you sat in your living room, painfully aware of Bill’s absence, you itched to open up another bottle of liquor, to keep the destruction going. You thought of Bill going home to his tidy house in the suburbs, to his wife, his son. You thought of all you had been through together. You relied upon him more than anyone. But you had to cut it off somewhere. 

Put away your feelings. Pretend everything was normal. Go back to work with Bill on Monday. Be polite to his wife when they invited you for dinner on weekends. 

When Bill got home, he changed out of his clothes and crawled back into bed with Nancy, who was still waiting up, eyes fixed on the ceiling with her own dark thoughts running silently through her head. Bill lay on his back and a long, silent sigh escaped him. His heart and his mind were throbbing. He was full of regret that he had not kissed you. But you had been too drunk, too vulnerable, and he would have regretted it even if he had. Not to mention the feelings of the woman who now lay beside him. 

“Did you get Y/N back home safe?” Nancy asked in an inscrutable tone.

“Yeah,” Bill said, rolling over and putting his arm around his wife. “She’s safe now.”

“What happened?”

“Dead battery,” Bill said. “Sorry to wake you. Got an early day tomorrow. Go back to sleep.”

He kissed the back of her head and rolled over again. He stared out the window on the opposite wall. All he could think of was seeing you again. 

**Author's Note:**

> anyone else think about Bill Tench lighting cigarettes as much as I do?


End file.
